#he has just always wanted to be a flower girl
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primus
a/n: Something a little different, I am obsessed with General Marcus and the idea of him becoming a gladiator. Hope you enjoy this other world I want to live in lol, no beta and barely proofread!
Warnings; 18+ no minors, vague but big-legal age gap, piv sex, dirty talk, body / breast worship-Marcus gives it so right🤤, hand-stuff - female rec'g, taking of virginity, (reader is a slave so there is a power imbalance but so is Marcus), gladiatorial violence, nothing graphic- let me know if I missed any!
Pairing: Marcus Acaciusx F!Reader
word count: 3.4k
reblogs are appreciated
Masterlist
--
The crowd roars loud enough to deafen, the sound of it like a great wave threatening to wash you out to sea but it's nothing new, you’re used to it. The house you serve, have served since birth, has done well for itself in recent years, all thanks to one Gladiator.
Marcus Acacius, the champion of the house of Romulus.
You’d seen him come in years ago and although you had been little more than a child, even then you could see what he had been reduced to, disgraced and defeated and practically at death's door. He had fought though, Gods knew he had fought. And just as you grew and flowered into a woman, he honed his skills anew, won matches throughout the city and had transformed from the disgraced General of Rome, to a true champion of the people.
You could see it even now, watching him make quick work of the paltry opponents sent to fight him in the arena. He swatted them away like troublesome flies, and the crowd loved him for it. The cup was held out to you, just as the man in the sand raised his sword.
“He really is of a form.” One of the hosts of the games remarked about the man fighting below, and your Domina smiled proudly.
“My husband has taken him and honed him, I dare say none in Rome are his equal.”
“We shall have to see about that.” The guest chuckled, not quite convinced but your Dominus laughed, unperturbed and unconvinced.
“My wife speaks truth, my Ludus has shaped him into a God of the arena.”
They continued their friendly bickering, while you watched the man below, you couldn’t deny his allure despite being more than a few years older than you. He looked up to the pulvanis and saluted to his Dominus, to his Domina, and for a heartbeat it felt as though his eyes locked with yours.
Lightning struck in your belly, the intensity of his gaze, even so briefly made your heart race. Ghostly fingers squeezed at your heart when the opponents fell on him, cornering him until he was surrounded. Attention locked on him despite your station, the laughs and doubts of his victory wreathing through the guests you served turned your stomach.
Deaths in the arena were a guarantee, that was to be sure. Every time your Dominus secured spots for his gladiators in the games it was expected that not all would return, this felt different though. He had to survive, why, you could not be sure.
“Aha! There we are. The legend of him is proved. He is victorious, and my wife’s words are true, as always.” Your Dominus smiles, kissing his wife’s hand as the doubters grumble about luck and ill-trained opponents.
The words flow over you, the only thing that draws your attention is the man standing below you, victorious and whole.
–
“The good wine, fetch it for me girl.” The sun shines through the balcony as your Dominus congratulates the gladiators who returned to the villa victorious. His wife, your Domina, sends you for the wine while he speaks at length of their virtues, stoking the fire of survival and vanity in them.
In truth the games hold no interest for you, never had you particularly enjoyed watching men fight to the death, it was a waste and had you the choice, you would never attend another.
They cheer louder than before when you return with the heavy jug, narrowly avoiding dropping it when he turns and catches your eye once more. Marcus has been invited out of the ludus below, and up into the main house.
He is much bigger than you expect. Tall and broad enough to intimidate anyone but the most surprising thing are his eyes, they are the softest thing about him.
“I would reward you, for your victory, for the honour and wealth you have brought to this house. Name your desire and I shall see it done.”
You pour for your Domina, ears straining to hear his voice.
“You honour me Dominus.” It’s so rich, deep and full of smoke. Your main focus is on not spilling the wine.
“I confess, I have felt a desire of late.” Your ears perk up, eyes following suit and when they meet his, they’re already set upon your face.
“You want her?” Your Dominus looks to you now as well, and you feel like a piece upon someone else’s board, to be moved around at their will.
“Only if she desires me as well.” He bows his head, and despite the tiny bloom of gratitude in your chest, your Dominus laughs.
“If she is what you desire, take her. The guards will lead you to the private quarters below and you may keep her there until the morning. I will have wine and a meal brought for the both of you.” Your Dominus waves a hand and it is done. Your virtue has been gifted to a Gladiator.
Your Domina frowns, but says nothing. She merely watches as you are led away, to spend the night with the former General of Rome.
-
The quarters are indeed private, but meagre. A lumpy bed, a small table with two chairs, an even smaller table with a large basin full of fresh water and clean linen, and a window. The door closes and your heart jumps into your throat.
“Shall I disrobe and lay on the bed?” You reach for the hem of the tunic, silently praying that he would not be too rough. The prudent thing to do, is to get it over with.
“No, wait-“ his hand engulfed yours, stopping you from reaching down and pulling off the fabric that hides your nakedness from him.
“I would speak a while, come.” He gestures to the table and you frown.
“Do you not desire my virtue? Is that not why you asked for me?”
“Yes, well, in truth I desire your company, as well as your body. I have noticed you of late, you have grown into a beautiful woman and I find my thoughts drifting to you often. Of your voice and of your touch. I dream about you.”
Your eyes widen, shocked into silence by his confession.
“I would have you enjoy our coupling, rather than simply enduring it.” His eyes dart away from your form when the guards bring a platter laden with food and drink, and when he gestures again, you finally sit.
He takes his time cleansing himself of the grit and grime of the arena, scrubbing away until a handsome, lined face appears underneath. Once clean, and armor free he sits with you, and urges you to eat.
It is a silent, slightly tense meal. Your fraying nerves had you mostly picking at the fruit and cured meats. The flutter in your belly kept you from overfilling it.
“How long have you served in this house?” His eyes are bright, curious.
“All my life. I was born in this house.” Your fingers fiddle with the edge of your tunic.
“Are you treated well?”
“I mostly tend to the Domina, she is very kind.” Your eyes drift to the bed, and the bottom of your belly falls again to imagine what he’ll ask of you once his own belly is full.
“You spoke of your virtue, you are as of yet untouched?” His voice lowers, almost apologetic.
“Yes. Well, untouched by anyone, except myself. There have been covert kisses here and there, friendly ones with others of my station.” He says nothing, but his gaze travels the expanse of your body. The slide of them is heavy from your breasts down to the slit in your tunic. His food sits forgotten on the small plate in front of him, and now there is hunger of a different kind on his handsome face.
“Do you find me desirable?” He leans back in his chair, broad and golden from the sun. Heat blooms in your chest, filling the corners of you.
“You are kind upon the eyes, I will not lie.” He smiles at this, and the heat spreads to the place between your legs, the place he will fill soon and a shudder travels along your spine.
“Have you enjoyed my victories in the arena?”
“I confess, I do not favour the games. Watching men kill each other holds no interest for me.” He laughs, surprised yet delighted.
“And yet you live and serve in a ludus, watching gladiators come and go your whole life.”
“The Gods have their reasons, I do not presume to question my place.” You shrug, unable to stop the corners of your lips from pulling up into a shy smile.
“Perhaps it is I who is blessed to end up here, in your company.” He muses and for a moment you cannot face his direct stare. “Come, lovely one. Let us to bed.” He rises, holding out his hand for you, It engulfs yours when you accept and join him.
Butterflies swarm as he guides you to the edge of the bed, the fine hairs all over your arms and legs standing on end when those rough, calloused palms skate softly over the curve of your shoulders. His breath fans over your face as he reaches the bottom of your tunic, pulling it up and off. The urge to bring your arms up over your breasts, to reach down and cup your sex makes your hands shake.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” His hands settle on your hips, squeezing at the flesh for a moment before removing his own layers. The sight of him, naked as you, with his heavy sex hardening before your eyes makes you shiver, part nervous, part exhilarated.
When he lays you down, you part your thighs to make space for him, once again praying the pain won’t be unbearable. The confusion paints your face in a frown as he lays beside you, and not directly on you.
“I would have you wet for me before I slip inside.” His tone, his words send another shiver down your spine before he presses his mouth to yours.
You have kissed before, a soft press of your lips to another, the barest taste of their tongue between rebellious giggles in the dark. Marcus’ kiss is nothing like that. He pulls you close, turning your body to press it to his, the stiff peaks of your breasts meeting the solid wall of his chest as his tongue slips past your open mouth and tangles with your own. For a moment, it is a little awkward but he guides you, pulling away before pressing forward again, leading you in his rhythm.
Your heart races, a curious excitement pooling low in your gut, in the yet untouched place between your thighs. You press them together while he claims your mouth.
When he pulls away, his breath comes out in pants and his sex presses hot and heavy against your belly.
“Lay on your back my sweet.” He kisses your shoulder, and you obey. Now, you think, now he will shove that thing inside me and rip me in half. You swallow thickly at the thought, it is so much thicker now, too big, surely.
He presses kisses to your shoulder, trailing them down to your arm, then the side of your breast before he pulls your nipple into his mouth. The steady suck of his mouth at the hardened peak forms a direct line to your cunt, the ache in it pulling a whimper from your mouth and a huff of self-satisfied laughter from him. Your skin is shiny with his spit when he lets it go.
“Does that feel good?” His hand holds the plump of your breast, tongue flicking against the peak while you nod, mouth-open in a silent stare. “What do you feel?” He sucks at it again, harder this time and a gasp leaves your mouth.
“I feel, hot. Warm all over, and an ache–” You pull in a sharp breath when his teeth pull teasingly at the bud. He soothes with his tongue, pink-cheeked and focused.
“Where do you ache?” He lets go, smoothing his palm in the valley between before holding the other one, and worshiping it just the same.
“I ache–oh, I ache–” It’s hard to focus when he sucks at the other nipple, your thighs pressing together without your permission. He stops, eyes flitting about your face.
“Where do you ache, tell me.”
“I ache here.” He follows your hand as it cups your cunt, the soft, fine hair there soaked in arousal like you have never known. He groans to see it, and then his hand pushes yours away, slipping between your thighs to pull them apart. He leans on his elbow, muscles glinting in the soft candle light as his fingers spread open the lips of your sex, exposing your dark pink insides to his gaze.
“Your pretty little cunt is so much better than I dreamed, spread your legs for me my sweet, I would work her open to take my cock.” Your heart races, your cunt clenches and then his fingers find the crux of you. They swirl slowly around the pert, sensitive pearl of your clit. Your mouth drops open in a silent ‘O’ at the way he manipulates you.
“So wet already.” He lowers his head, lips wrapping around a nipple again as he keeps his slow, maddening circuit. Your hands grip the threadbare linen beneath you, whole body clenching as he shoves you closer and closer to a shattering climax with his slow, delicious circles.
“Doesn’t that feel good? Doesn’t that feel so good, my sweet?” He presses his lips to your neck, whispering into your ear and you nod, frantically, clenching around nothing while the edges of everything blur with the threat of pleasure. Around, and around, and around he swirls, consistent, devastating until you can almost taste it.
Your mouth forms a steady chant of yes, yes, yes, as he continues his gentle exploration between your legs, fat pearly drops of his own arousal slipping against your hip but he is in no hurry.
The ache intensifies, the slick pools at the mouth of your cunt, and it's with a final, wet swirl that your climax washes over you. Your legs clamp shut around his hand, your body folds in on itself with the strength of it but it does not stop him, two thick fingers spear into your fluttering entrance, stretching and drawing out the pleasure of it while you gasp into his kiss.
“Gods above.” You whisper to yourself as the blood pounds in your ears, the warmth of his skin, the slick, rhythmic sound of his fingers working away between your legs stoking the fire once more.
“I could spill just watching you.” He pulls his fingers out, dripping in your lust and shoves them into his mouth. “Sweet as summer wine.” He licks them clean, vulgar and sweet all at once.
Again he reaches between your legs, slipping his fingers inside once more but with his thumb swirling around the crux of you.
He brings you to climax again, more intense with his fingers inside, petting at a divine spot you’ve never touched, and again, he doesn’t stop. He repeats his movements, his tongue flicking at your nipple, or licking into your mouth, until it’s too much and you push his hand away.
“Please, no more–I cannot.” You gasp for breath, skin shiny with sweat, the spot beneath you wet where your arousal has dripped down and soaked through the linen.
He laughs softly, proud and cocky at how many times he made you fall apart under his hand.
“If you would let me, I would do that for days.” He presses another kiss to your shoulder before moving up and settling between your thighs. The nervous flutter intensifies as his cock slips between the mess he’s made of your sex.
“I think you are open enough to take me now, I will try to go slow.” He kneels back on his haunches, lifting one leg up to hold. His fingers curl around the top of your knee, your calf resting on his shoulder as he grips his cock in the other hand.
Your belly trembles, part embarrassed, part excited to be so exposed to his gaze. The blunt end of it slides through your swollen folds, coated in your slick before he notches it and it’s with a slight burn that he slips it in. Inch by inch he presses forward, molding you to accept him, shaping you to fit him like a glove.
“Gods above.” He curses low as he bottoms out, so deep you feel him in your lungs.
Your hands ache from how tightly they grip at the fabric beneath you.
With a shuddering breath he holds himself still, allowing you a moment to get used to the intrusion of him, only a moment.
A sharp thrust pulls a gasp from your lips. His grip on your leg tightens, the other hand slides up and holds onto your hip, steadying you to accept the snapping of his hips.
The flex in his arms, the strong, firm muscles of his thighs pressed up against yours, the sheen of sweat glinting on his face and on his chest, all of it only makes it better, his beauty and his obvious desire for you serve to make you leak around him. You can feel it, dripping down your ass to add to the damp spot beneath you, it collects at the base of him too, drenching the curls there.
Your pants, his heavy breathing, and the vulgar sound of his skin slapping against yours is the song of your coupling. The burn is replaced with a pleasant feeling of fullness. It is not as good as his fingers at your clit but his obvious pleasure adds to your own.
“I’m going to come, going to fuck it deep inside of you.” Sweat drips down his nose and the vision of him, so like when he’s in the arena might push you closer to another climax.
“Here it comes–” He presses your legs up, opening them wider, folding you in half while he fucks into you hard enough to make the bed shake. With a low groan, and a thrust deep enough to hurt, he swells impossibly thicker for a moment before emptying himself inside you.
He shudders, grinding himself deeper as you wince, milking himself inside your body before pulling out and falling onto the bed beside you.
You catch your breath for a moment. Surprised, and grateful that despite there being the edge of violence to his taking you, it wasn’t the brutal, awful experience you were afraid it would be. Considering your station in life, it was quite nice.
“Give me a little while, and I will be ready to take you again.” He turns and presses his lips to your shoulder again.
“Again…? You wish to take me again?” There is clear confusion threaded through your voice, but he laughs, goodnaturedly.
“Oh yes, I have you for this one night, I plan on taking advantage. Did you not enjoy it?” He rests on his elbow, head held in his palm while his other hand skates over your skin, raising goosebumps in its wake as it palms one breast, then the other.
“I enjoyed your fingers, you brought me to climax more than I ever have on my own in a single night.” You curl onto your side towards him, soaking up the warmth of his skin.
“But you did not enjoy my cock?” His hand lands on your hip, holding you there and it’s curiously exciting how much skin he can touch at once.
“It was… a lot.” He laughs, nodding for you to continue. “I liked the fullness of it, but you were very deep. I could feel you in my belly and when you spilled it was intense.” He lets out a groan before pressing forward and stealing another kiss.
“It will feel better, we have to find which position you like best. Which angle you enjoy more.” He pulls you closer, tilting your chin up for another kiss, softer this time.
“What position do you enjoy most of all?” Your hands gravitate to his chest, pressing against it to feel his heart thumping against your palm.
“I am partial to being ridden.” He smiles, lip caught between teeth and heat floods your body to know he is imagining it.
“Why do you favour it?”
“Because I like when a woman takes her pleasure from me, It pleases me, to please her.” You could see it then, his soft eyes staring up in devotion as some faceless woman rides his cock. The longer you think on it, the more that faceless woman starts to resemble you.
“I would have you like that next.” He smiles, and you smile back, nodding.
By the time the sun rises, he has taken you every way you can imagine and your sex is so sore you don’t think you’ll be able to walk without wincing.
When the guards come to take you both back to your respective places, they have to physically pull him away from you, his lips pressed against yours in a goodbye kiss.
“You are the only prize I will ever ask for.” He calls over his shoulder as you smile at him.
For the first time in your life, you are excited about the next games.
-
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. . . 𝐢 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭
Geto Suguru
Regret has haunted Suguru ever since he parted ways with you; he's pining, lost, going mad. It kills him that he's made an enemy out of someone he loved.
► "I know that I ended it... but why didn't you stop me?"
+ Warnings/content: angst, pining, friends to enemies to lovers
Suguru's deepest regret is that he didn't kiss you before he parted ways. It eats him up more and more every day, like a parasite in his chest, chewing slowly on his muscles down to his bones.
Why didn't I kiss you?
He asks himself this so often — too often, god, he can't catch a break from his own mind, can't stop this regret from gnawing on his ribcage.
But isn't he his own obstacle? He chooses not to get over you. Yes, he actively chooses to not move on. Day after day, Suguru chooses to vividly remember the day he said goodbye to you — it's become his favorite film, he's memorized all the expressions, words, tones and romanticized it to no end.
We were perfectly tragic.
Late spring, flowers on the floor, black night, his tears, his shivering lashes, that quivering voice. Looking into his eyes, you saw that he wasn't prepared to let go.
He was holding onto you. Claws in your flesh.
Maybe that's why he chose to say farewell behind the 7-eleven; it was the place where you and him first met. The story was that both your Jujutsu schools had coincidentally assigned you two to exorcise the same curse; you were confused by Suguru's technique and wrongly went for him, like he was the bad guy — isn't it all so ironic now? You remember how he panted with a smile, like he got a kick out of fighting you, how he explained to you that it was a misunderstanding and that he was on your side. He remembers receiving a hateful look from you; it made his heart tick, leading him to wonder to himself what's wrong with me? I always love women who hate me.
Because of how you met, you and Suguru being 'enemies' was a running joke that carried on through your late teenage years.
Springs passed. Things changed — no, things got worse. Suguru was drowning and no one could see it, not even you, the girl who knew him like the back of her hand.
Suddenly, all those years spent living side by side each other in blissful, oblivious youth converged into a moment of goodbye.
There went by the scent of those falling flowers. Suguru's nerves were at full attention, sharp and prickly all over his skin. Goosebumps. He was jittery, even shaking — a look that you never thought he'd wear, being as cool as he always was.
You told him, "You don't have to be someone you're not just because of me." but he didn't want to hear that. No, he needed to hear something else. He needed to be told "Suguru, no matter what path you take, I'll always love you, deep down inside."
The night breeze chilled him. He stared down at you, eyes full of hurt like you've never seen in a man's eyes before.
Stark neon light from the vending machines painting your features, he didn't miss how your lips quivered. He leaned into you slowly, but then there was a sudden stutter in his movements. Something held him back.
Suguru chickened out from kissing you — that's what it seemed like to you, anyways.
But it was deeper than that. He never opened up about it. He just left. He just went.
. . . 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭,
and he's still haunted by memories of that night, heart rotting with regret. He can hardly sleep, can hardly eat, can hardly keep any food down — how could he stomach food when he can't even stomach his own choices?
Suguru visits the place where you and him first met.
He trudges through snow in winter, kicks leaves off his path in autumn — leans against the wall where the both of you once stood and just stares at the floor, allowing himself to hurt all over.
But no season makes him hurt quite like spring, when the scent of blooming flowers is so potent and strong that he chokes up.
What would you do if you saw him again?
He's thought so deeply about what he'd say to you that it's become a script; he knows the words by heart.
Why didn't you stop me?
Did you have feelings for me?
Do you hate me?
Please let me kiss you. Just once.
No, he's scratched the last one off his script.
He sighs to himself all the time — all the time. How did he make an enemy out of the one he loved?
A question that plagues his brooding mind is do you still love me even after what I did? He wonders if it's even possible. Sometimes he just settles on the assumption that you and Satoru hold a deep hatred against him.
. . . 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮,
your face appears around the corner; he can't mistake it.
Meeting you again after years have passed, though as enemies, makes him feel stilled, like all the chaos stops momentarily.
He doesn't know what to say, or how to act, so he just stays silent and motionless in front of you.
You speak and feelings start to rip him apart. "Suguru, where have you been?"
It's awkward. It's melancholic. The tension between you and Suguru is not just because of the gruesome truth of what violence he committed, nor the betrayal; no, it's more than all that.
He's utterly speechless, holding an unbreaking eye contact with you. Gazing into your eyes after so many years of staring into fuzzy photographs makes him feel giddy like a little kid, despite the severe expression you have.
You talk slowly and carefully to him, almost warily, and it breaks his heart little by little.
"I know we're not allies, but I'm still the same Suguru that you used to spend nights talking to." he quietly reminds you, hurt evident in his voice.
He gazes deeper into your eyes, deeper and deeper until he's dizzy. You hardly know how to respond.
"Suguru," you whisper back, tearing up, "Why did you do it?"
He doesn't respond, completely ignoring this.
"... I still think of you."
"... hey, answer me."
As he comes two steps closer, you back two steps away.
"... and I left so many things unsaid."
"... Suguru, I know, but — "
"... and I should have kissed you before I left." he blurted out.
Shocked, you take a moment to register what he just said.
"Why didn't you?"
"I just didn't want to taint you." he breaths, "I'm too fucked up and you're too sweet for me."
He brings his face closer to you, casting a shadow over your whole body, backing you into the wall. The setting sun peeks out from behind him, the breeze slows.
Suguru looks at you like an adoring, sad puppy. His face is full of all his regret and lust and longing and desperation. You've never seen this look in his eyes before — he's kept everything to himself ever since you met him.
Looking intently at your lips and wetting his own, he begs you softly, "Please, let me kiss you."
You shake your head very slowly, feeling so conflicted.
"Just once? Please, I need it so badly." he admits desperately, and then says your name in the softest tone you've ever heard a man speak in; your name, every letter so special to him, each syllable quivering in the air between your faces.
He's so close you can see every detail in his face; the harrowed eyebags, the sorrow in the wrinkles of his eyes, and flashes of memories in his pupils. Even more than all that, you can see the downturn of his parted mouth.
"I want to," you admit, swallowing sharply, "But I can't."
Lashes fluttering so sorrowfully, Suguru pulls back a little.
It's the same place, the same season, and the same pitiful situation.
There's a small silence in which you feel a madly desperate feeling emanating from Suguru, and then he crashes his lips onto yours so hard that you whimper.
Breathing hard, heart thumping up against his chest, Suguru holds you in place while he presses his wettened lips against you, tilting his head to the side to deepen the kiss.
You quickly surrender to him, and when you reciprocate his kiss — he whimpers. It's so subtle and quiet, but you feel it on your lips and tongue.
Kissing until you both run out of breath, Suguru finally pulls away — plucking little kisses from your lips as he does, like he just can't stop yet.
"I'm so sorry," he apologizes heavily, still keeping close to your face, not ready to let go. "I need you."
You look up into his eyes and he feels shivers going down his back.
"... I won't tell Satoru." you breathe.
His breath catches, and he doesn't hesitate to go in for the next kiss — and the next and the next and the next until you're letting him mark your neck with a harsh hickey.
Of course, you can't spend all day there, you realize after fifteen minutes of making out with your 'enemy'.
"I've got to report back." you tell him, "He's going to get suspicious if I'm out too long."
"Okay," Suguru pulls away, licking his lips and rubbing them together like he's just enjoyed a feast. "Can I see you again?"
"I don't know..." you mutter unsurely, "If Satoru finds out, he's going to — "
"So what?" Suguru feathers, "I don't care what he does, I don't care if I ruin your reputation — I need you in my arms tomorrow."
Your expression spoke volumes.
"Okay, I'll be here tomorrow night." you murmur.
Suguru's guilt hardly affects him as he goes home; your kisses meant everything to him. Your reciprocation and lamb-like weakness in his arms filled him with ecstasy.
He doesn't care that you were his 'enemy' — maybe the taboo makes it feel even better. It's wrong. It's not allowed. And he wants it so bad, he stands with eager anticipation behind the 7-eleven every night, waiting for you.
This place where you two first met, now five years later, has become a spot where you and him make out like teenagers.
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠! 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬: 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐢'𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲
#angst#suguru#suguru geto x reader#geto suguru#geto x reader#getou suguru x reader#suguru x reader#jjk suguru#jjk x reader#jjk angst#geto angst#suguru geto x you#geto suguru x you#geto#jjk geto#jujutsu kaisen angst#jujutsu kaisen x reader#fic#geto x you#geto x y/n
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Guys I feel so alienated grieving over this finale, because it was a hell of a show, it was so queer, so marvelous, a damn good witchy one. But I have many things to say and they are brutally depressing.
Well, there’re seem to be a lot of people who truly loved the ending and I expected myself to be one of them, because this show gave so much to my queer self. I believed that Killing Eve story is engraved in my heart as the drama for life, for Lonely Hearts Enthusiast as me. And it was fixed only due to my dear writer Luke Jennings, author of the original novels, who has written two new KE books during these two years, resurrected Villanelle and made it fabulous. It helped, it was a cure, but still the show–the damn 4th season–will always be a squeal of pain.
As for Agatha All Along…oh boy. It was a sweetest, the gayest, the funniest playground for me, mostly all the time. I felt like these rainbow witches bestowed upon us all their confidence, radiant sexuality, profound love and complications, twisted fortunes, relationships that had a longstanding history spanning centuries. It felt like I’m 12 years old again in a school сamp, and everything is so cool and fun, and there’re gorgeous high school girls and everyone is your crush, and nothing bad can happen because it’s really a little Switzerland for all. However, teachers tell you that you need to ski at 7AM, and it’s obligatory, and the road is slippery, your equipment is old, it’s so hard that sometimes you feel like you won’t make it to the end.
Down down down the road down the witches road…such a bittersweet dream. But who’s the dreamer?
Billy being a baby queer-ent with all hopes and courage, believing in happy endings, seeing good in the most evil characters. It’s you, it’s me, it’s us. And in the end everyone’s either a witch killer, or self-sacrificing hero. God, Billy, why it had to be so dramatic? I know, this is Marvel story and it was envisaged to be like this (meaning Agatha becoming a ghost). But still. Marvel was always about a lot of action and fun, for all drama under the rain we had the DC universe, didn't we?
But let’s cut the shit and get straight to the point, I actually wanted to talk about Rio. Rio Vidal is a new character, brilliantly portrayed by Aubrey fucking Plaza, I may say she made this hero so real, formidable, exceptional. Rio is not even in the comics yet, so there’re many things we don’t know about her and we were craving to know. But do we have a chance for that in the nearest future if Agatha will be busy looking for Tommy with Billy? I doubt that. And for the record, I don’t give a flying fuck about Tommy’s existence.
I’ve read an article in Them media and that brought me to tears again. If there was AgathaRio last kiss, does it mean we will never see them together again? Did Agatha really mean she didn’t want to see Rio’s face ever again, without even a proper talk, even after ‘she’s my scar’ revelation? Is Death always supposed to be the enemy of all? Will Agatha ever be able to forgive her, if Rio used to be the love of her life? If it was Billy’s sick fantasy does it mean he kinda summoned death on that road?
I listen to Rio’s theme in my playlist and cry for her. She has a black heart and it beats for no one but Agatha. Agatha never reacted to this like she didn’t care at all, did she? She has a tender spot in her heart for twink boys, and I know why but I hate it. I wanted this story to be sapphic, without changing the direction that much.
Moreover, I didn’t quite get why the hell Rio was so desperate to kill Agatha if she was so not okay about it in the end? They lost me there, I rewatched the first episode and tried to figure this out but I’m not sure that it was more than just a dominating game. Why did she want her horizontal (that part we got) in a grave, full of purple flowers, mushrooms, daisies and succulents? So romantic, yet so pathetic.
And still I was excited to watch Agatha’s and Rio's battle. Green and Purple striking each other’s bodies, there was so much passion in it, wow. It supposed to be so fucking hot, but instead this scene was interrupted by Billy’s performance.
God, Billy, I loved you as a character, but I loved you more as a sidekick, not another boy genius who suddenly develops his character and steals everybody’s thunder. He literally stole Agathario's thunder and blasted Rio, even when Agatha got her purple back. Twice.
Seriously guys, it felt like when you are trying to have some quality time with your girlfriend but her dog is jumping around and inviting you to play. With all due respect, you’re the sweetest Shiba Inu puppy, but why wouldn’t you just fuck off for a sec, because we’re having a moment here?
So was it Billy Maximoff All Along in the end of the road? Maybe that’s why I’m so angry right now.
Take a breath and dance with death, my love cannot be turned.
My love cannot be turned, even though there was so little dancing and too much thinking, to my liking. And it is so fucking sad.
#agatha all along thoughts#agatha all along spoilers#agatha all along#agatha harkness#rio vidal#agatharioedit#agathario#rio x agatha#aubrey fucking plaza#Kathryn mother Hahn#Kathryn Hahn#god i love them so much#im gonna burst into tears#killing eve#marvel
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This tournament is being run by and for queer fans so please keep that in mind! Homophobes will be blocked on sight <3 More polls here and more info here! Lyrics for the songs and FAQ under the cut!
Superman lyrics
Tall, dark, and superman
He puts papers in his briefcase and drives away
To save the world or go to work
It's the same thing to me
He's got his mother's eyes, his father's ambition
I wonder if he knows how much that I miss him
I hang on every word you say, yay
And you smile and say, "How are you?"
And I'll say, "Just fine"
I always forget to tell you, I love you
I love you forever
I watch superman fly away
You've got a busy day today
Go save the world, I'll be around
And I watch superman fly away
Come back, I'll be with you someday
I'll be right here on the ground
When you come back down
Tall, dark and beautiful
He's complicated, he's irrational
But I hope someday you'll take me away, and save the day, yeah
Something in his deep brown eyes has me sayin'
He's not all bad like his reputation
And I can't hear one single word they say
And you'll leave, got places to be, and I'll be okay
I always forget to tell you I love you
I loved you from the very first day
I watch superman fly away
You've got a busy day today
Go save the world, I'll be around
And I watch superman fly away
Come back, I'll be with you someday
I'll be right here on the ground
When you come back down
And I watch you fly around the world
And I hope you don't save some other girl
Don't forget, don't forget about me
I'm far away, but I never let you go
I'm love-struck and looking out the window
Don't forget, don't forget where I'll be
Right here, wishing the flowers were from you
Wishing the card was from you
Wishing the call was from you
'Cause I loved you from the very first day
I watch superman fly away
You've got a busy day today
Go save the world, I'll be around
Forever and ever
And I watch superman fly away
I swear, I'll be with you someday
I'll be right here on the ground
When you come back down
La, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la
When you come back down
🫶🫶🫶
Ours lyrics
Elevator buttons and morning air
Strangers' silence makes me want to take the stairs
If you were here, we'd laugh about their vacant stares
But right now, my time is theirs
Seems like there's always someone who disapproves
They'll judge it like they know about me and you
And the verdict comes from those with nothing else to do
The jury's out, but my choice is you
So don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours
You never know what people have up their sleeves
Ghosts from your past gonna jump out at me
Lurking in the shadows with their lip gloss smiles
But I don't care, 'cause right now, you're mine
And you'll say
Don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours
And it's not theirs to speculate if it's wrong and
Your hands are tough, but they are where mine belong and
I'll fight their doubt and give you faith with this song for you
'Cause I love the gap between your teeth
And I love the riddles that you speak
And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos
Will be ignored, 'cause my heart is yours
So don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
And life makes love look hard
Don't you worry your pretty little mind
People throw rocks at things that shine
But they can't take what's ours
They can't take what's ours
The stakes are high, the water's rough
But this love is ours
🫶🫶🫶
The question is which song is queerer to you! Queerer can mean whatever you want it to mean; you might consider a song queer because you think it was written that way, or because of Swiftian lore. It might be queer to you because of how you relate it to your own life. Maybe you think from a purely literary standpoint the lyrics have queer themes; maybe you're just thinking about vibes!!!
If you’d like to send in interpretations or propaganda for a specific song you can send them to my inbox! All interpretations are welcome and let’s be open and kind in response to all interpretations <3
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baek in-hyuk: i am a top idol i am not singing at a birthday party wtf
also baek in-hyuk:
#he has just always wanted to be a flower girl#sol never even saw him throwing flowers that time#anyway sun-jae should never listen to baek in-hyuk's advice#lovely runner#kdrama#baek in hyuk#im sol#ryu sun jae
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feeling shrimp emotions about cbee again. sorry it will happen again
#postcanon ranboo revival is real to me. thinking a normal amount of thoughts about them when everything is over and the dust settles#full believer that they get like. married married after ranboo is revived because goddammit they never got a wedding the first time#and maybe ranboo's ghost was a little too haunting because tubbo can never quite forget it the bloodstained wedding dress the ruined veil#the way their hair hung in front of their eyes#down in the way that ranboo always hated with he was alive because of how it touched her neck#about those empty empty eyes about something in the shape of someone you loved more than anything that doesn't understand. OK#really normal about replacing something that haunted you for so long with something happier. with something joyous#michael gets to be ring bearer. tommy is the flower girl AND the best man because he's just cool like that#ranboo's bouquet is pink tulips. jasmine flowers are braided into their hair. Does Anyone Hear Me. Does Anyone Fucking Hear Me#hm. i need to draw this will i probably not. but i want to. GOD i want to#they have the first set of rings on their horns but i think they order a second set for their actual hands#tommy spends at least five minutes laughing when he sees how much bigger ranboo's ring is in comparison#look. to me tubbo is maybe 5'4 if we're being nice about ranboo has AT LEAST a full foot on him if we're being generous#he never had a chance
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need to get back into my man hating era bc I cant anymore
#sadly for me most of my good close friends are men#but maybe that is why i am so done with their bullshit#overexposion yk#Like this one friend of mine has a new fling very time I see him and they are always red flags#abd he lowky is one too#cuz this man when on a couple oof date with some girl and he went all they way right?? with the cute dates and flowers and shit?#But he wants something “casual” so she breaks it off#And then he acts surprised that she goshed him 💀💀#and then he hates on her current boyfriend bc he is supposedly toxic (idk I never met the dude) LIKE HE DIDNT LEAD HER ON#im just so done#and this is just one dude#i have so many more storys#maybe i just need other friends but idk lol
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cute funny looking child | max verstappen
pairing: max verstappen x actress!reader
summary; the one where yn becomes obsessed with a cute funny looking child she stumbled across on pinterest. only to find out that the “cute funny looking child” is now a full grown formula one driver.
liked by charles_leclerc, and 715,529 others!
yourusername: i found this cute funny looking child on pinterest, then started crying because he’s just so cute
view comments below!
user1: girl what
user2: there’s medical terms for people like you
user3: no i get it
user4: he's actually so cute
user5: these pictures look old...what if this child is grown now??
user6: imagine scrolling through instagram and you see someone calling you a "cute funny looking child"
user7: this is too funny
user8: am i the only one who knows thats max??
user9: NO I DO TOO!!!
user10: us and charles LMAO
user11: he liked this and said nothing 😭
user12: not his childhood photos, not his problem
user13: how are yn and charles friends but she doesnt know what max looked like as a child?
user14: she knows nothing about f1, she's only friends with charles and thats it 😭
user15: what medical condition do you have?
user16: but…why?
user17: you have issues
user18: i don’t think this reaction is normal…
user19: babe that’s max verstappen??? formula 1 driver??? rich GROWN millionaire???
user20: millionaire you say 😏
user23: i see you didnt take your meds today
yourusername: i’ll have you know that my medication ran out so HA
user24: you might wanna ask for more
user25: yeah because this? not normal!
liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris, and 716,019 others!
maxverstappen1: recharging, done ✅
view comments below!
charles_lelcerc: what a cute funny looking child
maxverstappen1: ?
charles_leclerc: nothing…
user21: HE KNOWS
user22: it’s even funnier that charles 100% knows about the ‘cute funny looking child’ thing and just chose to not tell yn it’s max 😭
user23: yn will never live this down
user24: this is going to haunt yn for literally ever
user25: i PERSONALLY will never let her forget
user26: such a cute funny looking child
user27: max has got to be so confused rn
user28: is that a cute funny looking child i see???
user29: cute funny looking child max!!!!
user30: why is no one talking about how good max looks??
user31: i am. HE LOOKS GORGEOUS
danielricciadro: 😍😍
user32: you are handfeeding the shippers
user33: please, he IS the shipper
user34: cute funny looking child
user35: I AM SO CONFUSED BY THESE COMMENTS? WHAT IS GOING ON
user36: so basscialy
user37: what happened was
user38: many years ago
user39: it was a dark and gloomy night
. . .
. . .
liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc, and 619,916 others!
yourusername: this f1 thing is fun!
view comments below!
user40: you lucky son of a bitch!
charles_leclerc: can’t believe you went to a race for HIM 🤮 but not me…
yourusername: i didn’t go for HIM! i went because was invited!!!!
charles_leclerc: IVE INVITED YOU SO MANY TIMES AND YOU ALWAYS SAY NO
yourusername: LEAVE ME ALONE
user41: is ‘him’ MAX???
user42: it has to be
user43: YN AND MAX SHIPPERS ARE LIVING
maxverstappen1: you said you would post more baby pictures of me 😕
yourusername: you’re right in front of me? talk to me?
maxverstappen1: i want everyone to know that we’re on a date!
yourusername: we are?
user46: HUH
maxverstappen1: yes? i asked you on a date and you said yes?
user44: GIYS????
yourusername: i thought this was a friend thing…
user45: HWAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING
maxvertappen1: do all your friends buy you flowers when going out to eat?
user46: YOURE RIGHT IN FEONT OF RACHOTHRT??? STOP THIS?
yourusername: no…
maxverstappen1: exactly! now do you want dessert?
user47: i can’t…i’m sick to my stomach…i cannot
user48: what just happened
user49: i wish i knew
user50: okay so that just happened! now what?
. . .
here’s this before i disappear for a couple of weeks (maybe months?) i apologize but schools been keeping me busy AND i have books on wattpad that take up most of my time! im hopeful ill be able to post maybe once a month? nonetheless i hope you enjoyed this :)
#max verstappen social media au#max verstappen smau#max verstappen x y/n#max verstappen blurb#max verstappen fluff#max verstappen x you#max verstappen fic#max verstappen x reader#f1 x reader#f1 fanfic#f1 imagine#f1 fic#f1 x y/n#f1 x female reader#f1 x you#f1 social media au#f1#f1 fluff
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Me when they are the sisters ever: 😭😭😭 They came out soooo freaking well. I won’t lie, they took me a thousand years to finish but through the constant support from all of my buds (and my latent bisexuality), we made it 😤
Hopefully you guys know the deal by now: design choices, easter eggs, and (NEW!) closeup shots below the read more. ⬇️
I wanted Ace to have a very down-to-earth vibe and looked at Aussie beach-girls, coastal cowgirls, and vaqueras for reference. (IDK, I’ve just always envisioned Ace as part-Australian🌺 and Mexican 🏴☠️) Her clothing choices are mostly natural or utilitarian materials like the painted wooden beads on her top, her woven fabric and leather belts, and her denim jumpsuit. I gave her bikini top a zen-garden kind of feel because I read the first Ace’s Story Novel and I loved how idyllic and peaceful they made Sixis Island sound so I wanted to invoke that in some way.
Speaking of her painted wooden beads, they hang off the back of her top and represent her connection to Sabo and Luffy. They watch her back once she sets sail. She only wears one red glass bead earring because the other one got ripped out of her ear when a child, leaving her earlobe torn (don’t think about it too much 😢). Also, YES! she does wear a hibiscus flower just like Rouge (because I hate you and I want to make you cry, muhwahahahaha).
Also, I really wanted her to have super textured curly hair that licks behind her like flames. I am always considering whether or not a character should have long hair or not because I don’t want it to be a hindrance if they’re in a fight (or if they ARE a fighter with long hair, how to they avoid an enemy making use of that?). Ace is, of course, a Logia-type Devil Fruit User so I think she wouldn’t have trouble with people grabbing it LOL I get the feeling that she doesn’t take very good care of it even though it looks amazing. Like you’d think it would be soft and bouncy just by looking at it but if you ever get the chance to run your fingers through it, it’s a total rat’s nest and there’s sand and food all up in it. She still falls asleep while eating 😂 but she tries her best to only do it around people she can trust (woman moment 😔).
Honestly, her design is not that different from Ace’s canon look. It feels really vital to Ace’s character to have a lot of skin showing. And he’s always hanging all over himself with his hips all cocked like the weight of the world is too much to stand up straight. It is certainly not my OWN preference to make her an absolute smoke show. That’s just the character, okay? (I’m partially lying and the proof is that I turned the emblem on Ace’s hat strap into a sternum tattoo for no other reason than that it is sexy af.)
Here are some closeups of Ace:
Now for Sabo, I’ve made her very girly. I tried putting her in pants or something more militant but she told me that she’d wear the big poofy sleeves and hiked-up ruffled skirt. I think Sabo has always had a strong grasp on his fashion sense and individual flair and I truly believe that his personal style is one of the major influences for the rest of the Revolutionary Army resulting in the very flashy, queer, steampunk aesthetic (aside from Dragon’s plain-ass cloak). So of course I had to implement her nonconformist look when reimagining her as a woman and dress her up to the nines.
I’ve given her very ornate jewelry that is there to tell a story, even if she herself doesn’t know it. I like to think she picks up stuff from her travels that resonate with her, such as a damaged set of earrings with one stone missing or red cup-shaped shells featuring three nestled pearls. Another accessory that cannot go unmentioned is her dragon claw hat pin that keeps her top hat resting on top of her hair (and is definitely used as a weapon when the situation simply doesn’t call for trusty metal pipe). She also has a veil that obscures her prominent facial scar. I imagine she’s not very keen on the reminder of the incident from her childhood that took away her memories. I also kept her chipped toothed because 1) it’s fucking adorable and 2) is a visual reminder that she no longer aligns herself with the nobility who would have gotten such a thing fixed. She is so poised in almost every outward facet of her life from her dignified role as the Chief of Staff to the elegant materials in her clothing that it can be easy to forget she was also a rough and tumble forest dweller. Every time Koala remembers this, he lets out the biggest sigh.
Her hair is inspired by Gibson Girls and Elizabeth Swann from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I wanted it to be fussy and tidy but fall apart when she’s in moments of distress. For example, when she remembers her sisters, her hair starts to look like Ace’s flaming mane. I’m so in love with her, I think she looks like an adorable little porcelain doll that would fuck you up. I made an effort to keep her eyes a little bit manic. I get lost in her steely black orbs (and also Ace’s warm brown ones, but we’re talking about Sabo rn).
Here are her close-ups:
Plot notes for this AU:
For this series of character designs, I wanted the expressions and outfits to be aligned with the canon plot but I don’t know if I have the heart to kill fem!Ace in my AU. I’m too attached and ASL has suffered enough!!!!! But Ace’s death is also a major defining moment for Luffy so it feels disingenuous to completely avoid it. Also a huge aspect of Sabo’s character is carrying on Ace’s will and I have so many thoughts about how the Dressrosa Colosseum scene would play out if they were all women. Oh well, I’ll cross that tragic bridge when I get to it. I’m definitely going to draw some Modern AU Girl Piece ASL though. They deserve to hang out with no stakes 😭 They are sisters!!!
Check out the tag “girl piece” on my blog for my other One Piece genderbends! 🥰
#girl piece#one piece#one piece fanart#genderbend#portgas d ace#revolutionary sabo#ace#sabo#fem ace#fem sabo#fire fist ace#flame emperor sabo#asl brothers#asl sisters#op fanart#character design#cowgirl#steampunk#marineford spoilers#dressrosa spoilers#girl piece original design
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❝ THINGS THEY DO THAT GIVE YOU BUTTERFLIES ! ❞ ╰┈➤ MHA EDITION (PART 2!)
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ a/n: y’all wanted a part two i shall give a part two
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ includes: katsuki bakugou, hitoshi shinsou, shoto todoroki, denki kaminari, iida tenya, kirishima eijirou
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ warnings: black!reader obv, cursing, mentions of drug usage/marijuana, suggestive if u squint, fem reader implied, mentioning of babies/children
BAKUGOU KATSUKI
✮ wipes your tears sort of aggressively but only because he’s so urgent to comfort you and take care of you
✮ always hugs you by your lower waist
✮ when you go to the gym together, he’s the type to always say “c’mon, you can do one more.” or “do three more”
✮ ruffles your hair/flicks your forehead in a teasing way
✮ “act right.”/“watch out.”
✮ doesn’t remind you to drink water— he simply justs brings water bottles up to your mouth and tells you to “open up”
✮ if you have any, he cares for your pets like they’re his own
✮ just something about the sight of him holding a baby
✮ bites you just because he can
✮ pulls you into his lap whenever he’s tired of your attitude
✮ gets super close to your face like he’s gonna kiss you but pulls away just to mess with you
✮ “that’s my girl” in the most proud voice ever every single time
TODOROKI SHOTO
✮ any time he does get high he’s all over you and staring at you with half lidded eyes
✮ it’s just something about the way he curses man.
✮ loves falling asleep on the phone with you and takes facetime photos of you sleeping because he thinks you look like an angel
✮ runs his thumb over your hand whenever you hold hands
✮ loves giving earlobe kisses
✮ will casually be like “when we have kids,”
✮ sends voice memos ranging from something funny that happened in class to how much he misses you and needs to see you
✮ kisses your lip gloss off every chance he gets right after complimenting how nice your lip combo looks
✮ sends you pictures of yourself and says “you look so pretty in this”
✮ him whispering in your ear.
✮ has your contact as the only one pinned in his messages
KIRISHIMA EIJIROU
✮ pats away your tears with his finger instead of wiping them (those who watch love island usa and are kordell + serena fans know what i’m talking about)
✮ places his hand on the small of your waist to guide your somewhere or move you out the way
✮ constant forehead kisses
✮ lifts you up and spins you around when he’s excited to hug you
✮ guides you into the right form when you workout together
✮ runs his hands down your waist and hips when he’s checking you out while you’re right in front of him
✮ him around kids. that’s all.
✮ gives you flowers pretty much every week— and one time he gave you a money bouquet for your birthday
✮ flexes for you when he feels you staring at him and pretends he’s not doing it on purpose
✮ throws his arm around you and presses you flush against his chest when you go to sit on the couch next to him
✮ refers to you as his “wife” to his friends
KAMINARI DENKI
✮ you could have been rotting in bed all day and when he facetimes you he always greets you with something along the lines of “hello my beautiful princess” with a lovesick tone of voice
✮ calls you “mama” and “ma”
✮ obsessed with skinship because he aches to be able to “crawl inside your skin” and just needs to be close to you
✮ blows kisses at you from across the room
✮ for comfort, he runs his fingers through your hair and rocks you back and forth while hugging you
✮ his morning voice :)))
✮ lets you bite him and encourages it
✮ gets very touchy when you’re on his lap
✮ the king of “i know you’re probably asleep, but” texts
✮ goes on rants about how gentle and how well he would care for you when you’re one day pregnant with his children
✮ always calling you his “pretty baby”/“pretty girl”
✮ always posts pretty candid pictures of you and makes heartfelt story posts for every birthday, anniversary, and valentine’s day
HITOSHI SHINSOU
✮ has read for you + sung you to sleep on multiple occasions
✮ grabs you by your chin to force eye contact
✮ “say please”
✮ checks you every time you have an attitude with a smirk on his face
✮ has a habit of biting his lip
✮ says “there you go, babe” way too much.
✮ glares at anyone who flirts with you while tightly wrapping an arm around your waist
✮ has made multiple shared playlists for the both of you
✮ says he’s “gatekeeping” you because you’re just too pretty and he has to keep you to himself
✮ plays with your fingers when he’s bored or nervous
✮ buries his face into your neck to bask in your scent when he hugs you
✮ randomly stares at your for a full five minutes when you’re talking, barely listening to a word you’re saying, then lovingly sighs “i love you so much…”
IIDA TENYA
✮ always opens every door for you
✮ holds your hands while walking across the street or through the hallways
✮ very protective over you and will respectfully cuss anybody out who disrespects you
✮ pretty much has replaced your name is his vocabulary with “honey” and “sweetheart”
✮ never calls you hot— he always calls you beautiful, pretty, gorgeous, or stunning
✮ grabs you by your sleeve or your belt loop to take you somewhere if you don’t hear him call your name the third time
✮ the thought of ever calling you his “bitch” disgusts him, he calls you his lady or his love instead
✮ will immediately grab the nearest box of tissues to wipe your tears or your nose whenever you’re crying
✮ kisses your cheek to greet you and say goodbye
✮ has deep conversations about your future together when you get to that point in the relationship, and is open about how much his heart swells at imagining you as a mother
✮ kisses your forehead when he notices you asleep on his chest
© rumisgf
#bakugou x black reader#denki headcanons#denki kaminari#denki kaminari x reader#bakugou headcanons#kaminari headcanons#denki x black reader#todoroki x black reader#shoto todoroki x black reader#tenya iida x black reader#iida x black reader#shinsou x black reader#kirishima x black reader#eijirou x black reader#kirishima hcs#kirishima x reader#bnha kirishima#kirishima eijirou#bakugou katsuki#shinsou headcanons#shoto x reader#shoto todoroki#todoroki x reader#tenya iida#iida x reader#bnha iida#shinsou x reader#hitoshi shinsou#mha#mha kirishima
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I am not the first person to attempt explaining this, but let me tell you about some of the nuances of Bless Your Heart™. It does not solely or even usually translate to “you are a dumbass.” It is more subtle than that:
It is primarily a thing you say to clarify (or falsify) the tone of what you DID say
OR
it is secondarily a thing you say instead of something ELSE to maintain 1) plausible deniability 2) a moral high ground.
“Bless your heart”: You genuinely deserve blessings because you are going through it right now and you need them. Gratitude, sympathy. “I’m going to have surgery next week.” “Bless your heart! Is there anything I can do for you?” (“Oh, bless your heart for asking.”) Original face-value meaning.
“Bless your heart”: You need a blessing because God knows you’re lacking (manners, intelligence, common sense) right now. Synonyms could include “Well, isn’t that precious” or “Well, that’s different.” It often comes in clutch when you don’t want to tell someone to their face that they fucked up. Your nephew has mowed the front yard for you. He has also mowed over all your flower beds. “Well… bless your heart.” If you were going to use it as a stealth insult to someone’s face for a more egregious occasion, it would be this category. It can be a mean girl move (the classic “It’s so brave that you dress like that” vibe), but it’s also a way of saying, “I want you to know that I see what you’re doing and I don’t approve of it, and you fully understand I’m expressing that, but I’m not going to give you the justification to clap back at me because I didn’t SAY that.” Someone wears a fancy white bridal-looking gown to your cousin’s wedding: “Well, bless your heart, that sure is a dress!” (If they understand you: “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” Because they know, but they want to make you SAY it. Combat engaged.)
“Bless their heart”: I am sharing news (gossiping) about someone but I like them and I want you to understand that I do, truly, bless their heart. “It’s been so hard for her after her father passed. Bless her heart, I’m gonna make her that red velvet cake she likes.”
“Bless their heart”: I am shit talking someone and I want to cover my ass, of COURSE I am just concerned for them. “She wore white to her sister’s wedding last week! WHITE! Bless her heart, I guess some people’s children just don’t know better.” (“Well you know they say she was always after the groom—“ “NO! Bless her heart.”)
That last one is the BYH they would need to deploy (but didn’t) in the Make Some Noise clip, but I feel like it honestly wasn’t necessary because the “prayer request” already served as a cover for talking shit. It probably would have come out if they’d been allowed to keep the skit going and they needed plausible deniability for spilling juicier details that maybe Jesus didn’t actually need to hear about. Thank you for coming to my Performing Southernness While Being Neurodivergent talk.
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cold hands - psh (m)
this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader
synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.
genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey
word count. 39.5k 😂
a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)
Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.
The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.
It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers
When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.
Just to name a few:
There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin.
A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off.
In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior.
The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her.
So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.
Right?
He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life.
These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me.
The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you.
Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.
You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.
“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”
“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.
“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes.
“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace.
You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.
“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.
“You don’t believe them?”
You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”
This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.
Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)
But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.
“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department.
“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him.
“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.
“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”
The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.
Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains.
“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that.
He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself.
“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”
Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”
The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore.
The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now.
“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.
Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.
You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”
Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon.
You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”
“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.
“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”
Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”
You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.
He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”
Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.
At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”
“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.”
For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”
“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?”
Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.
He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.
“There you guys are!”
You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”
For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”
Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser.
You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.
He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”
Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”
“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.
“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.
“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”
Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”
“You’re on, Sim.”
“You’re going down, Sim.”
Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.
Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.
Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.
You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.
When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing.
Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.
The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated.
You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.
“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”
“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder.
Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”
He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.
When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”
His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.
You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.
“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”
Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”
Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.
Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together.
At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing.
Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.”
He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest.
In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.
Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing.
Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”
“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”
All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever.
You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?
As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer.
His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style.
You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.
He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning.
“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”
“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.
You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.
“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.
Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.
He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”
“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”
“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”
“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”
“They really don’t.”
“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.
“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.
“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.
“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.
“Where’s that choir of yours?”
--
When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.
He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center.
“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.
“You had time to bake?”
“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”
Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”
You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.
Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.
“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”
“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”
“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.
“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.
“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”
“I came to your concerts!”
One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal.
As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown.
Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.
Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned.
A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”
He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”
Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”
An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it.
The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face.
As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”
“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”
“What if they come back for them?”
“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it.
The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café.
He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.
“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”
“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”
“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”
“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”
Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.
The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.
“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”
“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice.
He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.”
The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”
He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”
“For sure.”
There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.
“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”
At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”
“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”
Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.”
He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.
“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”
You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”
You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”
“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”
“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.
“That makes sense.”
You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”
“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”
You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”
“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”
When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.
“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”
“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.
“It’d be my pleasure.”
“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”
Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.
“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.”
You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”
Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”
“Your mom must be really strong.”
Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.”
“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”
“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree.
The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.
The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks.
“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.
Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”
“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”
You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later.
The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.
“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.
“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack.
Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.
But you don’t.
Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.
All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you.
He can hardly fall asleep that night.
--
For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had.
But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner.
Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.
If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.
Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.
And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone.
In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends.
Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met.
He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love.
Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart.
Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.
And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.
So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all.
Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted.
That was his first mistake.
Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”).
“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.
“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.
Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”
Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”
There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.
“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”
“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”
“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.
“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”
“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”
Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”
Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”
Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.
He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least.
The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.
The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game?
That was his second mistake.
You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.
yn.sim i’ll be there!!
You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.
“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.
“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.
“Your team jacket?”
He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.
A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.
“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.
First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long.
Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.
He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.
“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.
“Okay.”
He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”
Your smile widened. “Of course.”
He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.”
Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.
Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.
Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority.
As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over.
A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.
Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.
The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him.
To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal.
And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure.
The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.
Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.
It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.
chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!
Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.
“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.
Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute.
He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too.
Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.
And that was when he saw you.
Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?
He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.
His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.
“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger.
“Hey. I was wondering where you were.”
“You’re the one who came late.”
“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”
“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”
“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.
He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.”
Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”
You nod. “Mh-hm.”
“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.
You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”
“It looks good. You look good.”
“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly.
“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”
“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”
At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?”
Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.
“Oh, that was Jaemin.”
“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.
You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”
Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”
“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.
“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”
He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.
He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner.
“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.
“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down.
“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.
The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”
Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.
For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.
“I’ve missed you.”
You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.
“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”
Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.
“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper.
Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”
You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.
“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”
“Just us two?”
“Just us two.”
He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.
There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.
“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”
You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”
He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”
To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”
Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.
“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”
He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.
“Okay.”
But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”
The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”
“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”
You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”
At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.���
Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”
Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”
You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”
He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”
“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”
Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”
“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.
“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”
“I wasn’t that bad!”
“I should’ve filmed you.”
It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.
Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.
Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.
“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.
Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance.
Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.
“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”
“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?
“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.
He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.
“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.
“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.
“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his.
He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.
“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”
“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.”
Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.
Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.
“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.
“Mh-hm.”
“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”
“Right.”
There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.
“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.
“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain.
“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”
“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.
“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”
Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.
“So you agree that I’m tall?”
You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”
Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”
“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”
“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”
Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.
“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”
Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”
“You-what?”
“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”
You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.
“Sure.”
“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”
“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.
“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”
“That’s smart.”
“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”
Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.
You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months.
Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.
“Minjeong?”
“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”
“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.
“But she’s not the best with relationships.”
“What do you mean?”
Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-”
A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”
Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”
“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”
“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”
“You’re like, nineteen…”
“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in.
She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.
“Minjeong, I promise-”
“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Go inside.”
She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.
--
Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.
yn are you still up for doing something this week?
He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.
She never lets things get serious.
Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.
So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all.
He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.
You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.
Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.
In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.
When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.
You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.
“Like what?”
“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”
Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego.
“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.
You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.
“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”
Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.
He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.
It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.
He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.
You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.
You grab his hand; it warms him right up.
Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.
He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth. He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.
Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.
At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind.
He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.
In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.
Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.
“Do you wanna come up?”
“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.
“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.
“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”
“Minjeong karaokes?”
“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”
You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.
The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you.
“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”
Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”
This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had.
“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.
“Hm?”
“I mean, me too.”
You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”
Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.
Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner.
After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month.
He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely.
His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.
He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.
“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.
You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.
His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.
“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.
“Yes, please.”
He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.
Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.
As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.
--
When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.
You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.
Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you.
He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.
You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”
“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”
This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex.
It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.
You’re better than a dream.
“I feel great. Do you feel great?”
“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.
The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was.
“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”
What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.
“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”
“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”
“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there.
You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”
And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.
--
After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.
His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.
If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well.
The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.
He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.
He has never felt so awkward in his life.
“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.
“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”
“I haven’t!”
“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”
“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.
“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.
He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.
Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”
You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”
Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.
But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere.
So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”
--
After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you.
The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”
He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”
“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”
With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.
It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment.
His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away.
A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.
“I was gone two minutes.”
“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?”
“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.
“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.
He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there.
He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm.
As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck.
“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”
Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.
As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern.
But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you.
What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace.
After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.
All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.
--
Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public.
Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.
It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.
It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party.
Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.
Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.
He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it.
But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything.
Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.
And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends.
So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep.
As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy.
But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”
When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point.
The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention.
Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.
There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.
“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”
He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes.
“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth.
“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”
“Have you guys tried saying something?”
The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says.
He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently.
No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.
Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.
“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”
“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”
“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”
“So this has to do with your parents?”
“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”
“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.
“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”
Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.
Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”
Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.
A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”
“Since I met her, basically.”
Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”
Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.
“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye.
“How did you know, anyway?”
“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”
Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”
“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”
“I didn’t want to make things weird.”
Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”
“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.
“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”
Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”
“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”
“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.
“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.
“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”
Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.
“Everyone…”
“Everyone?!”
“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”
“So everyone.”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”
“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.
“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”
“‘Cause of Heeseung?”
“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.
“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”
“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.
“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”
“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.
“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”
“Shut up.”
“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”
Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”
Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”
A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”
“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”
“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”
“What would happen more than once?”
Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”
“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.
“Yeah, what did you think?”
“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”
“Well, we were.”
“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”
“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”
Jake frowns. “Why not?”
Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”
“What are you scared of?”
“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”
“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”
Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”
Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”
“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”
“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”
“Not really, no.”
“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”
He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”
--
They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.
He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.
Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.
That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.
“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.
“Jay texted me.”
“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.
“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment.
He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”
“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”
He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”
“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”
“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”
“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.”
Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.
You scoff. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”
“That’s different-”
“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”
“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”
“Of course I do! But I have to.”
“No, you don’t-”
“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”
“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”
“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”
“Again, that’s different-”
“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”
You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”
“Yes.”
As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”
Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper.
“You heard me,” you say coldly.
He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”
You glance at him. “Yeah.”
A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.
You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”
“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”
His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.
“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”
--
It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.
Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…
What was Sunghoon?
Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.
Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.
No, okay, it was definitely your fault.
Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.
From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.
“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside.
“What is?”
“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.
“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”
“I don’t think I do, actually.”
She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”
You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”
“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”
“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”
“So you are going after him?”
“So you do like him?”
Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”
“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”
“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”
“And how have you gathered that?”
“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”
“I’m not-”
“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”
“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”
“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”
You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.
“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?”
The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing.
Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.
He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.
Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.
So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you.
You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.
Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.
You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?
Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.
Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.
It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.
Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.
You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.
The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.
Then you went home for a weekend.
It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.
Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.
The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.
At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.
You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours.
Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.
It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.
“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”
You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”
“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”
You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”
“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”
“It wasn’t any of your business.”
“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”
“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.
“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”
“Why can’t he?”
“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”
Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”
“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”
Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.
“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”
You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”
“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”
“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”
“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”
“God forbid.”
After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.
You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.
But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.
It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history.
Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.
Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.
Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.
Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?
Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.
“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.
“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.
“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”
“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”
“Not to them, it doesn’t.”
“Then forget them.”
“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”
“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”
“I wish it was.”
“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”
He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”
“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”
You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”
He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what has it been about?”
He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?
“I love you.”
Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.
“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.
“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.
“I was waiting for you to say something.”
“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”
“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.
“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”
“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”
Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”
“I think I have too.”
“You think?”
You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.
Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.
You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”
You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.
--
Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.
Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.
It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.
Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.
You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.
He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.
Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.
“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.
“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”
“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.
As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”
“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.
“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears.
“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.
He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”
“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.
You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.
--
In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.
He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.
The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.
And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.
When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.
The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”
Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.
Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.
“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.
“What do you need, baby?”
“You.”
“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.
“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.
“I’m not sure I do, actually.”
You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.
“That I can do.”
He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.
“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”
“I love it, Hoon.”
He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”
You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.
“Please what?”
“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”
He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”
“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.
“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”
You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.
You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”
With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.
But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.
“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.
“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.
“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.
“I know, baby.”
Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.
Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.
You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.
Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.
© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!
permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)
#sunghoon x reader#enhypen x reader#sunghoon smut#enhypen smut#sunghoon fanfiction#enhypen fanfiction#enhypen au#sunghoon au#enhypen scenarios#sunghoon scenarios#enhypen imagines#sunghoon imagines
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the universe needs leclerc!sister x harry. by the universe i mean me
kiss a musician - hs
summary: harry wants to date yn leclerc. the only girl out of the four leclerc siblings. her older brother who happens to be a formula 1 driver is not happy about it folkie radio: guys you have no idea how nervous i am of posting this idk why 😭😭 i really hope you like this otherwise i'll feel silly okay
MASTERLIST | MY PATREON
liked by charles_leclerc, alexandrasaintmleux and 502,255 others
ynleclerc hot girls cry on their birthday 💌
view all 9,736 comments
username1 HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE LECLERC
username2 she’s the moment
scuderiaferarri Happy Birthday, Ferrari queen ❤️♥︎ by author
username3 AHH WE SHARE THE SAME BIRTHDAY
pierregasly Wow! I still remember when you were a little kid and you wanted to play with Charles’ kart. Happy birthday 🎉 ♥︎ by author
↳ yourinstagram when you and charles rocked justin bieber haircuts. cheers
↳ username1 HEEELP
carmenmmundt Happy birthday gorgeous gorgeous girl ✨ ♥︎ by author
↳ yourinstagram love youuu ty 💓
pascale_leclerc Joyeux anniversaire ma petite fille ♥︎ by author
lorenzotl Stop growing up right now 🥲🥲 ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 the leclercs are cry babies when it comes to her
arthur_leclerc It’s giving old lady
↳ ynleclerc stfu you’re like 5
↳ username2 LOVE THEMMM
alexandrasaintmleux My girl ❣️ ♥︎ by author
landonorris HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE 😍 getting more gorgeous by the second ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 LANDO YOU’RE ON MAIN
↳ charles_leclerc How many times do I have to tell you to back off?
↳ username2 CHILL
lilyhme happy birthdayyy beauty, can’t wait to celebrate tonight 🕺♥︎ by author
↳ alexandrasaintmleux She has no idea of the surprise that’s coming her way
↳ ynleclerc JUST TELL ME ALREADY
charles_leclerc Happy birthday petite soeur, you might be older now but you’ll always be our baby ❤️ ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 AWEEE
↳ username2 protective big bro
liked by harrystyles, ynleclerc and 2,011,268
charles_leclerc I’ll always look after you. Joyeux anniversaire ma petite soeur ❤️
tagged: ynleclerc
view all 13,944 comments
username1 AWEEE
username2 MY HEART CANT TAKE THIS
alexandrasaintmleux 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 ♥︎ by author
carlossainz55 Happy birthday @ynleclerc 🎉
username3 charles adores her so much i can’t do this
landonorris happy birthday (again) i hope you got my flowers @ynleclerc 😘
↳ charles_leclerc That’s it.
↳ ynleclerc HE DIDNT SEND ME ANYTHING HES JUST MESSING WITH YOU FFS 😭
↳ username1 HELP MEEEEEEEEEE
username4 what is HARRY STYLES doing in the likes
↳ username1 charles x harry lore is real
ynleclerc Love you forever 💓 ♥︎ by author
lorenzotl Before both of you became annoying teenagers
↳ ynleclerc stfu you’re like 50
liked by username1, username2 and 27,936 others
harryupdates Harry performing at a private event in Monaco tonight !
view all 1,976 comments
username1 WTF?????
username2 WHATS GOING ONNNNN
username3 GOD I MISSED HIM SO MUCH
username4 someone dig in more information bc wtffff
username5 MONACO OUT OF ALL PLACES THATS SO RANDOM
username6 YALL I HAVE INFO!! apparently this is charles leclerc’s (formula 1 ferrari driver) sister’s bday party
↳ username1 OMFGGG
↳ username2 THIS CROSSOVER
↳ username3 imagine having a rich brother who can get harry styles to perform at your birthday party
liked by harrystyles, landonorris and 654,835 others
ynleclerc BEST PARTY EVER 😭😭 thank you to my angels @/charles_leclerc @/alexandrasaintmleux for putting this together for me, HARRY STYLES ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME ???? love you all so much 💓💓
tagged: alexandrasaintmleux, lilymhe, charles_leclerc, landonorris, harrystyles
view all 15,937 comments
username1 OMFGGGG
username2 OH TO BE YN LECLERC
oscarpiastri Coolest party ever 🤘♥︎ by author
username3 imagine being rich and pretty and having a rich and pretty brother who hires harry styles to perform at your party
arthur_leclerc Your gift from me was a Chanel purse, where is my post?
↳ ynleclerc sorry turtur but harry styles > chanel purse
↳ arthur_leclerc Fine I agree, Harry Styles is out of this world
username4 IT GIRL FR FR
francisca.cgomes I’m still hungover ♥︎ by author, iamrebeccad, alexandrasaintmleux, lilymhe
↳ iamrebeccad Same
↳ ynleclerc come to my place let’s bed rot together ♥︎ by francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux, lilymhe, iamrebeccad
↳ username1 i just want to be one of them 😩
username5 charles really got HARRY STYLES like antisocial harry styles who never leaves the house to perform at his little sister’s wedding. wow
username6 THIS IS FOR THE F1 x HARRY GIRLIES
alexandrasaintmleux You deserve it my gorgeous girl ❤️ ♥︎ by author
↳ ynleclerc you’re my favorite human on earth
↳ charles_leclerc I paid for the entire thing…
↳ ynleclerc did i ask?
↳ username1 LOVE THEM 😭
harrystyles Happy birthday again, YN. It was a pleasure to meet you and your brothers. Big love to the entire family x ♥︎ by author, charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc
↳ username1 HARRYYYYY
↳ username2 we NEED to see that harry x charles pic
↳ charles_leclerc Thank you for the performance, mate 🙌
↳ username3 this is still surreal to me
↳ ynleclerc best birthday thanks to youuuu ❣️
↳ username1 charles or harry?
↳ yourinstagram harry ofc
lorenzotl Love you so much, little one 💓 ♥︎ by author
landonorris When your babe posts you on main 😍 ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 LANDOOOO😭
↳ username2 i love their friendship and how they mess around to piss charles off
↳ ynleclerc my main bitch 😘
↳ charles_leclerc I’m logging out now
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liked by charles_leclerc, harrystyles and 597,367 others
ynleclerc anything interesting happening in monza this weekend?
view all 13,199 comments
username1 COOL GIRL
username2 if charles doesn’t win then we don’t care ♥︎ by author
arthur_leclerc Is that my hoodie?
↳ ynleclerc whoops
iamrebeccad You’re hanging out with me 🥰 ♥︎ by author
↳ carmenmmundt And me ♥︎ by author
↳ ynleclerc highlight of my weekend
username3 FORZA FERRARI
↳ ynleclerc forza charles*
↳ username1 REAL
landonorris Papaya looks better on you babe 🤩
↳ username1 sometimes idk if lando is just joking or if he’s being fr
↳ ynleclerc NO
↳ charles_leclerc I’m in your walls
username4 HARRY IN THE LIKES ???
charles_leclerc Ma petite soeur always supportive ❤️ ♥︎ by author
↳ ynleclerc im here for other reasons
liked by charles_leclerc, carlossainz55 and 599,637 others
ynleclerc HE WON 🥺🥺 i’ve never felt prouder of being your sister, you teach me what being resilient and fighting for your dreams means. IL PREDESTINATO. THE KING OF MONZA. FIER DE TOIN TOUJOURS
view all 13,986 comments
username1 AWEEEEE
username2 THE LECLERCS MAKING ME CRY TODAY
scuderiaferrari It's in his blood ❤️
username3 the way she was crying and hugging arthur when the camera showed them THE LECLERC SIBLINGS HAVE MY HEART ♥︎ by author
alexandrasaintmleux 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 ♥︎ by author
username4 BEST RACE EVER
landonorris I'll win more races for you babe 😘 ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 LANDO STOP
↳ ynleclerc you're all talk and no trousers
↳ username2 i love their friendship sm
harrystyles Congratulations @/charles_leclerc! ♥︎ by author, charles_leclerc
↳ username2 hARRY STYLES???
↳ username3 THIS IS SO RANDOM WTF
↳ username4 LSJSAFH WHAT??
↳ username5 I guess he became with the leclercs after the party 😭
↳ charles_leclerc Wow thank you mate! ♥︎ by harrystyles
charles_leclerc Je t'aime petite soeur ❤️ ♥︎ by ynleclerc
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liked by username1, username2 and 18,037 others
harryupdates Harry having in dinner in Italy tonight !
view all 1,028 comments
username1 BABYYYY
username2 italyrry lives
username3 IS HE ON A DATE
username4 BUUUB
username5 i was there and he was with a girl 👀
↳ username1 hello spill the deets ??
↳ username2 HUH
↳ username5 the girl was really pretty and they were chatting and laughing all night long, they looked cute
↳ username3 IM PANICKING NOW
ynleclerc has added to their close friends story
replies:
carmenmmundt Omg you went on a date !! So happy for you beauty ✨
↳ ynleclerc love youuu carm
francisca.cgomes THATS MY BABYYY who’s the lucky guy?
↳ ynleclerc can’t say yet 🤫🤫
alex_albon Charles won’t like this..
↳ ynleclerc he doesn’t have to know
landonorris NOOOO YOU’RE MY BABE
landonorris WHO’S THAT????
↳ ynleclerc that’s a secret i’ll never tell
harrystyles ❤️
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liked by username1, username2 and 25,477 others
harryupdates Harry out and about in Monaco today !
view all 1,987 comments
username1 BABYYY
username2 HE LOOKS SO RICH???
username3 ooohhh is monaco the new italy ??
username4 THE OUTFIT IM SALIVATING
username5 dilf dilf
username6 singlerry is the best thing ever
deuxmoi has added to their stories
liked by harrystyles, alexandrasaintmleux and 601,275 others
ynleclerc happy ❤️
view all 14,837 comments
username1 OMG BABY LECLERC HAS A BOYFRIEND ??
username2 PRETTYYY
francisca.cgomes 😍😍 my baby! ♥︎ by author
username3 BRO CHARLES IS NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS
username4 WAITING FOR CHARLES’ MELTDOWN
lorenzotl Wow I didn’t know about this, I’m happy for your, soeur 🤍 ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 the only sane leclerc ♥︎ by author
↳ charles_leclerc Don’t support this
landonorris BABE?? ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 OMFG THE FLOWERS COULD BE FROM LANDO
↳ username2 LANDOYN IS REAL
leclerc_pascale ���️ ♥︎ by author
↳ charles_leclerc Don’t support this
alexandrasaintmleux 🥹🥹 ♥︎ by author
↳ charles_leclerc Don’t support this
↳ username3 HELP CHARLES IS SO ANNOYING
arthur_leclerc EXCUSE ME WHEN WAS THIS
↳ ynleclerc just flowers turtur
username5 CHARLES WAS FOUND SOBBING
username6 HARRY IN THE LIKES
charles_leclerc YN Pascale Leclerc, answer your phone right this second
↳ username1 NOT THE FULL GOVERNMENT NAME
↳ username2 PROTECTIVE BRO
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───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
liked by harrystyles, landonorris and 604,827 others
ynleclerc but god i love the english ‼️‼️
view all 15,002 comments
username1 OMG
username2 AHH I FEEL LIKE SHES DATING LANDO
carmenmmundt 🤍🤍 ♥︎ by author
username3 HOW DID CHARLES ALLOW THIS
leclerc_pascale Belle 💕♥︎ by author
username4 HOLD ON. THATS HARRY STYLES IN THE SECOND PIC??
↳ username1 YOU’RE RIGHT THOSE ARE HIS TATTOOS
↳ username2 OH LORD
arthur_leclerc JUST SPILL
↳ username1 yn not telling her brothers anything is so 😭
username4 someone put charles on a straightjacket
username5 so yn is dating either lando norris or harry styles ?? what an icon
landonorris YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BABE IDC 😤
↳ username1 SO ITS NOT LANDO
↳ ynleclerc dude give it up
gemmastyles 💓♥︎ by author
↳ username1 OH
↳ username2 STYLES-LECLERC CONFIRMED
username6 CHARLES IS RADIO SILENT THIS IS SCARY
alexandrasaintmleux Prettiest girl forever 🥰 i’m happy for you ♥︎ by author
↳ username3 charles is single now
lorenzotl Petite soeur! Your happiness is mine 🙌 ♥︎ by author
↳ ynleclerc 🥹
↳ username1 lorenzo is such a supportive big brother :(
charles_leclerc You’re not allowed to leave the house once you’re back in Monaco
↳ username1 HEEELP
↳ username2 HES SO DAMN ANNOYING
↳ username3 POOR YN
liked by username1, username2 and 21,937 others
harryupdates Harry out in London today!
view all 2,011 comments
username1 BUBBBB
username2 WHOS THAT
username3 guys guys yn leclerc had that same outfit on her last insta story
username4 THATS YN LECLERC 😭
username5 HARRYYN STYLECLERC CONFIRMED
username6 bro how did this happen…
username7 that’s why he performed at her birthday and he kept going to monaco OMG
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───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
ynleclerc has added to their close friends story
replies:
francisca.cgomes 😂😂😂😂😂
alexandrasaintmleux He has his phone with him now
↳ ynleclerc i’ve muted the groupchat for my own sanity
alex_albon You’re going to give your brother a heart attack…
↳ ynleclerc that’s not on me he’s just dramatic
landonorris HARRY STYLES ????? HOW?????
↳ ynleclerc you don’t think i’m capable of pulling him?
↳ landonorris yes you are 😩
↳ landonorris you’ll always be my babe tho
harrystyles Don’t joke about that love I’ve been panicking all day
harrystyles has added to their close friends story
replies:
mitchrowland And one of them can run you over with a Ferrari, by the way
↳ harrystyles This is not helping my case
jefezoff 😂😂😂😂😂
gemmastyles You’ll survive brother (hopefully)
niallhoran YOOO you and Leclerc’s sister? How did that happen
↳ harrystyles I’ll tell you about it if i make it out alive after family dinner
ynleclerc you’re a cutie
───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
───────── ౨ৎ ─────────
liked by harrystyles, alexandrasaintmleux and 602,838 others
ynleclerc 💋
view all 14,088 comments
username1 OMFG
username2 SHES INSANE
username3 GIRLLL ADDRESS THE RUMORS
gerogerussell63 🤣🤣🤣
alex_albon You're really going to give your brother a heart attack...
↳ ynleclerc he'll survive
↳ username1 THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE
username4 THE HARRY LIKE PLEASE HES NOT SURVIVING THAT FIRST DINNER
username5 the vintage racing jacket and the shirt SHE KNOWS WHAT SHES DOING
arthur_leclerc DISGUSTING
↳ username1 HEEEELPPP
liked by username1, username2 and 48,047
gossiphub The Leclerc family was seen out to dinner in Monaco tonight, joined by Harry Styles, who's dating YN Leclerc
view all 3,099 comments
username1 OOOHHH MY GOD
username2 IT HAPPENED
username3 i can only imagine the talk charles gave to harry
username4 DID HARRY MAKE IT OUT ALIVE
username5 oh im praying for harry
username6 STYLECLERC IS ALIVE
username7 meeting her brothers 😭😭😭 i cant
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liked by harrystyles, arthur_leclerc and 1,022,337 others
yourinstagram dinner update: he made it out alive
view all 10,278 comments
username1 AHHHH
username2 THIS HARD LAUNCH
alex_albon 😂😂😂😂😂
username3 i just need to know how that dinner went
↳ ynleclerc enzo was a sweetheart as always, arthur was a fanboy the entire time and charles couldn't stop yapping about driving fast cars in order to scare harry
↳ username1 HEEEEEELPPP
pierregasly Now he needs to meet your chosen brothers
↳ ynleclerc NO
↳ francisca.cgomes Leave her alone ♥︎ by author
landonorris This is who took my babe away from me? 😩
↳ harrystyles Proudly ♥︎ by author
↳ username2 OMFGGGGGG
↳ username3 THIS IS TOO GOOD
↳ landonorris Can't even complain you're cool as hell mate
lorenzotl He's part of our family now ♥︎ by author, harrystyles
↳ charles_leclerc 😵
↳ arthur_leclerc CRY CHARLES
harrystyles First Leclerc dinner done. Now I need to survive my first Grand Prix ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 IM YELLING
↳ username2 OMFG HARRY AT A GP
↳ charles_leclerc See you in the Paddock, mAtE
↳ ynleclerc LEAVE MY BOYFRIEND ALONE
liked by harrystyles, ynleclerc and 2,011,272 others
charles_leclerc Ma petite soeur pour toujours ❤️🤷♂️
view all 16,043 comments
username1 AWEEE
username2 he's such a big brother
alexandrasaintmleux My 🤍🤍 ♥︎ by author
username3 i wish my brothers loved me
pierregasly Everyone needs to watch out for Charles when he's in big brother mode ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 tell that to harry styles
scuderiaferrari Name a more iconic duo ❤️
username4 I NEED TO KNOW HOW THEIR CONVERSATION WENT LIKE
arthur_leclerc I'll always be on your side @/harrystyles ♥︎ by ynleclerc, harrystyles
↳ username1 HEEEEELPPP
↳ username2 ARTHUR IS SUCH A FAN
↳ lorenzotl Same 🙌
↳ username3 HELP CHARLES IS ON HIS OWN
↳ ynleclerc my favorite brothers 🤍🤍
↳ harrystyles Thank you, Arthur and Lorenzo. I can't wait for golf this weekend x ♥︎ by arthur_leclerc, lorenzotl, ynleclerc
↳ username4 OMG HE HAS PLANS WITH THE LECLERCS YALL
↳ charles_leclerc I think I just got kicked out of my own family
ynleclerc you’re annoying and want to scare my boyfriend away, but i love you ♥︎ by author
↳ username1 they’re the besttt
#harry styles#harry styles fake instagram#harry styles imagine#harry styles fluff#harry styles x reader#harry styles blurb#harry styles one shot#harry styles writing#harry styles x you#harry styles fic#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles fic rec#harrysfolklore#harry styles fanfic#charles leclerc x reader#f1 x reader#formula 1 fanfiction#charles leclerc fanfiction#leclerc!reader#leclerc!sister
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Soon-to-be Single!Price sending this to his soon-to-be cheater wife to show her how good the new babysitter is taking care of him (🌽 link)
John’s intentions with bringing you into the house as a babysitter were genuinely pure. He wanted you to help fill the void inside his twin daughters’ hearts ripped open by their absent, whoring mother.
One night he finds himself scrolling through the Au Pair website looking for the suitable candidate and he finds you. A foreigner, good with kids, previously working as a tutor and now currently on a gap year from studying at university to give a helping hand mouth and pussy to families like his. And that is how he brought you into his home.
John’s wife seemingly did not care, as long as her kids didn’t bother her, she couldn’t care about who’s taking care of them.
Day by day, John becomes enamoured by you. The way you took care of his kids was pulling at his heart strings, daring him to get closer to you, to get to know you better and possibly become friends so that he has someone to take to. That is his intention, right?
He learns your favourite colour, food, the flowers you like, the designer items on your wishlist hoping to be rich enough to buy them. He memorises your features. Your perfect lips, manicured hands, your prim and proper appearance in front of him is almost like a facade to protect yourself.
And it is, you try to protect yourself from John, to keep a distance and always be polite with an air of professionalism. You can’t let him know that your head over heels to hear his gravelling voice, to stare at his cerulean eyes or even just to get close enough to smell his cologne. You definitely didn’t want him to think of you as a strange au pair that he regretted choosing.
Often you and John would find yourselves alone in the home after tending to the girls and putting them to bed and going to the kitchen to enjoy a snack before bed. Tonight, you find John leaning against the kitchen counter sipping on a glass of whiskey as you go to open the fridge. You know, politely acknowledging his presence.
“Care to share a glass with me?” John’s smooth voice engulfs your presence.
You turn back looking at him as you give him a soft smile, “Thank you for the offer Mr Price, but-”
Before you finish, he puts his hand up signalling you to stop talking and sighs before taking another sip of his drink.
“Turning down a man going through a divorce?”
Your eyes widen at his question, “You and Mrs Price are-”
“That slut doesn’t deserve to be called by my last name.” He says curtly.
You nod, making your way next to him and pouring yourself a drink and taking a sip, the liquid deliciously burning down your throat.
“I’d appreciate you not telling the girls, I don’t want them worrying.”
“Of course, sir-”
“John. Just John is fine.”
“Alright, John.” You say and John swears that you were a siren in disguise at that moment. Your sweet voice calling his name like a holy man being lulled in by a succubus.
A few too many drinks later, you find yourself in such a predicament. On the floor, watching yourself in the mirror as you sloppily makeout with John’s cock as he records you. Suckling his head, you drool onto the floor, laving it as your tongue prods at his slit, guttural moans spewing out of his mouth encouraging your ministrations.
You let go of his tip with a ‘pop’ noise, making your way down his length. Long wet drags on your tongue along John’s veins cause him to shiver in delight, begging his body not to cum too early on.
His voice cuts through the air of whimpers and wet sucks as John addresses his wife in the video.
“You could never suck my cock like this and you’ve given yourself wrinkles from the amount of dumbfucks you blew after work.”
John forcefully takes your mouth off his cock, halting the momentum of pleasure inside of him. He grabs your chin harshly, making you face the camera. Your lips red and bitten from his kisses, drool staining your chin as you look at the camera doe-eyed and needy.
“This sweet little thing takes care of the girls better than you do. She’ll be a better wife than you, ya slag.”
#john price x reader#cod smut#john price#john price cod#john price smut#captain john#tf141 smut#captain price#john price x you#price x reader#captain price x reader#price x you#price x y/n#price smut#price cod#captain john price x you#john price x y/n#captain john price smut#captain john price x reader#captain john price#captain price x female reader#captain price smut#captain price x you#captain price x y/n#captain john price x female reader#cod x reader#tf 141 x reader#links#spicy links#twt links
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older boyfriend Simon.
warnings : very small mention of smut :3
Older boyfriend Simon who Always opens the doors for you, passenger door, restaurant door, bedroom door, house door, every damn door he can open he will.
Older boyfriend Simon who always brings you flowers when he gets back from a mission.
Older boyfriend Simon who will talk about you constantly when you're not around. at base? talking poor soap and gaz's ears off about how pretty you are. Prices office? still talking about you. In his and soaps shared room? staring at your picture and talking about your favorite things.
older boyfriend Simon who is VERY protective of you. When u first met Gaz, soap, Keegan, and price he threatened to kill them all if they even tried to flirt with you.
Older boyfriend Simon who literally has a tracker on your phone. not in the gross toxic way, almost in the worried mom way. If you want to go out for a girls night he checks that thing 20 times in an hour. Hes just so worried someones gonna hurt his precious girl:(
Older boyfriend Simon who is the definition of scary dog privilege. Like if someone even speaks to you with an attitude for a second they will hear about it for hours. Did someone physically (or mentally) hurt you? you best bet they're getting their ass beat.
Older boyfriend Simon who comes home grumpy from work and raises his voice at you, then immediately feels bad when you start to cry.
Older boyfriend simon who buys you anything you stare at for a second to long. (and buys your whole wish list in 2 months).
Older boyfriend Simon who dosent know how to use his words and apologize so instead buys you gifts. (he's working on using his words better)
Older boyfriend simon whos so jealous after you talk to a man that he bends you over the table at home and makes you moan his name until "you've learned your lesson"
Older boyfriend Simon who uses "pet names" for you. he never uses your real name, its always, princess, missus, sweetheart, doll, and recently "princessa" (we can thank Alejandro for that)
Side notes: I just really wanted to babble on about older boyfriend simon, and how i think he would act idk, i just feel like hes very obsessed and feral for you. i also want to make a whole series of what its like living with older boyfriend Simon
#call of duty#cod mw2#cod x reader#ghost cod#ghost fluff#ghost x reader#simon ghost riley#simon riley fluff#older boyfriend simon#older boyfriend ghost#ghost x female reader
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MY REPUTATIONS NEVER BEEN WORSE, SO
katsuki bakugou x reader
how he’d treat you in a relationship
same concept as the todoroki, kirishima, shinso, izuku, touya ver.
inspired by delicate
katsuki bakugou, who’s got a reputation. who is a harsh, abrasive asshole. who is known for his temper, and for his power. who knows that being with him isn’t for the best. who knows that anyone who wants to be with him has to like him for him.
katsuki bakugou, who almost always texts you at night. who makes your phone light up through the black, daring you talk to him. who is actually so funny and considerate, but would never let anyone know that. who will absolutely not go to sleep without texting you goodnight.
katsuki bakugou, who struggles to make promises with you. who, for once in his life, isn’t fully sure of himself. who prefers to live day by day with you. who isn’t sure if he can give you forever, but who will make you a drink and take care of you after. who slowly learns that forever is loving you day by day.
katsuki bakugou, who, though he’d never in a million years admit it, is insecure. who, behind his gruff features and anger-induced explosions, questions himself. who wonders if its okay that he bought you two concert tickets two months into your relationship, of if its chill that you’re in his head.
katsuki bakugou, who is so handsome- and he doesn’t even realize it. who wears beat up nikes and dark blue to see you. who prefers those private dates, the ones where he can love you in secret. who is a mansion with a view, with a key only you own. who loves the way your face lights up when he finally surprises you with flowers or chocolate. who thinks its dumb, but chases that high forever.
katsuki bakugou, who touches you like no one else. who knows you’re the only girl that could possibly bring him to his knees like this. who spends long nights with your hands in his hair. who wants to stay with you, and doesn’t wanna share.
katsuki bakugou, who is still an asshole despite being loving and caring. who calls you idiot, and dumbass, while he picks you up and carries you to the couch so you can cuddle. who, despite popular belief, is really sweet when he helps you study. who hides a smirk whenever he sees you succeed. who sometimes teaches you the wrong thing so you’ll come back and ask him to explain it again.
katsuki bakugou, who is made to be a caregiver. who loves cooking with you, reaching up to grab that book on the shelf you can’t reach. who insists on giving you his hoodie, because he never really gets cold. who secretly restocks your fridge for you and reminds you to eat something other than just cupped noodles. who shows he loves largely through actions.
katsuki bakugou, who loves back hugs. who always wraps his muscular arms around you whenever you’re doing anything, pressing his sweet lips just underneath your ear before whispering something to you. “i love you, idiot. move, i’ll help you with those dishes.”
katsuki bakugou, who learns that his reputation is just that- a reputation. its a perception of him, not who he really is. who wonders if you dream of him while you sleep the way he does. who pretends your his, all the damn time. who learns that he doesn’t have to pretend anymore.
katsuki bakugou, who you love for who he is. who is tough, and strong, and loves you delicately. who learns to promise you forever.
#bnha bakugo x reader#bakugou smut#bakugou katsuki x reader#katsuki bakugou x reader#bakugo katuski#mha bakugou#katsuki bakugo x reader#bakugou x reader#bnha bakugō#bnha bakugou#bakugou katsuki#katsuki x reader#bnha katsuki#katsuki x y/n#katsuki bakugo mha#bnha bakugo katsuki#katsuki x you#bnha x y/n#bnha x fem!reader#bnha x self insert#bnha x gender neutral reader#bnha x you#bnha x reader#mha x y/n#mha x you#mha x gender neutral reader#mha x reader#my hero x reader#my hero academy fanfiction#boku no hero acedamia
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